Water is caused to flow through various types of piping and heat exchanger systems for extracting heat from turbine steam, chemical processes, and numerous other operations. Common to all of these applications is the exposure of comparatively cool, flowing water to a comparatively hot metal surface; and this combination of factors promotes the precipitation or deposit of various salt matrices, depending upon the mineral content of the cooling water. The resultant scale interferes with efficient heat transfer, leading ultimately to destructive overheating of the system, and may, in extreme cases, produce clogging as a final consequence of reducing the lumen-size of the conduits involved.
Scale deposits of calcium phosphate have proved to be especially troublesome because of their resistance to removal and because of the difficulties encountered in inhibiting their formation.